Monday, March 23, 2015

Of Scars and Stories (The Cathedral: A Reprise)

Of Scars and Stories

People with scars are the most beautiful things in the
world. Without them, we are like an eye that has never shed a tear, or a tongue
that has never bathed in laughter. A night sky, without a single star.

Scars represent struggles. They reveal something deep and
real and beautiful, even though we cringe, and feel our stomachs turn at the
sight of them. Struggles are stories. And stories are life.

Not all scars are visible. Some of them linger, just under
the surface, or some deep down, where light has never touched. But all people
have scars.

They are proof of life past and life to come. Road-markers.
Reminders. Like day-dreams and dog-eared pages. Scars are our way of saying
“I’ve made it this far. (And maybe I can make it a little farther, yet.)”

The truth is that we are all jars of clay. Earthen bones,
vessels pulled from the ground, more breakable than glass and cheap as dirt. We
are easily broken, body and soul. And like clay jars, whenever we are cracked
or chipped or outright shattered, what hides inside us is revealed.

And like the things of dust that we are, we weren’t made for
shelf life, either—we expire much too quickly for that. We weren’t made for
mint condition—we gave that up the moment we took our first breath.

We were made for trenches. We were made to be broken open,
and prove what is inside us. Made to rocket through the world like a penny,
collecting grime and fingerprints from a thousand places, and to be rattled
clean at the end. We ricochet like bullets, in our little, orbiting lives,
racing from one moment to the next with hardly time for pause.

Scars are stories. Stories are scars.

Stories written in skin and soul and etched in the sinews of
the heart. We are scars on the skin of this hurtling sphere, living scars,
histories and memories and salt.

So roll up your sleeves, or pull off your shirt. Tear off
your mask, and show me all of the grime and the claw-marks on your face, from
when you were close enough to feel the devil's breath. Get rid of anything that
hides you. Show me your scars and I will show you mine. Show me the signs that
tell where you’ve been, and a glimpse of your tattered heart, so I can see
where you’re going. Pin them to your chest like medals, badges of weakness, signs
not of what storms you survived, but of what your faithful captain has brought
you through.

Show me your scars, and tell me your stories. I’ll show you
mine, like He showed me His. Mine gruesome and gaping and rotten, the holes
left behind by chains, peeled, tugged and pried from my flesh.

His only three—made by nails, and a spear. And yet, His
scars and mine share the same story.

The Story of a God who spoke a universe, who forged every
moment and watched every one of them poisoned. A God who suffered every ounce
of pain he witnessed, who watched his bride kidnapped and ravaged and who did
not remain idle. A God who entered this world through a woman to relieve the
curse of all mankind. A universal God, who folded himself into a child, and
grew to break the curse.

He died to prove His infinite love—and he rose again to
prove His infinite power.

God was poured out, into a clay jar of its own. A shallow,
breakable body, cracking in the cold and baking in the sun. He who spoke the
earth into being and drew life from its emptiness, humbled to fill that which
he drew from the ground, spinning on this temporal potter’s-wheel. When that
jar was splintered, the light spilled out; all the light of heaven, the light
of truth and goodness. It lit up the universe, with a story. A struggle,
between light and dark, that was over.

And that glow was poured out, into all of those fragile
vessels called to His service, to burn inside them. Vessels of clay, full
of heaven’s treasure. With every crack, we release the light that we contain,
until we shine like lamps in the darkness. With every scar, with every hurt,
every hardship, we prove not the light of what is in us. But who is
in us.

Every time we are broken, body and soul, we become not
something more whole—but something more wholly His. Something a
little more like the treasure entrusted to us.

We are vessels of clay, sculpted to tell stories. Made to be
scarred. Made to point to something all our lives, and to keep on pointing, at
their end. For through our scars, our struggles, our stories, we reveal
something more about the healer, the overcomer, and the storyteller.

And the truth is that my story and His have the same
character. And it sure isn’t me.

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About Me

My name is Jeff. I am a writer of words, and a servant of King Jesus. Lover of good books, great coffee, dear friends and sunshine, living in a world forged by words, in a land spun from golden summers and grey winters. I see things differently, and I write what I see.